Monday, 22 August 2011

Hollywood Babylon - Satanic Rituals And Demon Possession

Hollywood Babylon is a book by avant-gardefilmmakerKenneth Anger which details the sordid scandals of many famous and infamous Hollywood denizens from the 1900s to the 1950s. First published in the US in 1965, it was banned ten days later and would not be republished until 1975. Upon its second release, the New York Times said of it, "If a book such as this can be said to have charm, it lies in the fact that here is a book without one single redeeming merit."

... But the money ran out. So he wrote a book of scandal, and fittingly, his first publisher was Jean-Jacques Pauvert, the publisher of the Marquis de Sade. Weaving in the juiciest stories from pre-talkie Hollywood up to the Manson murders, Hollywood Babylon describes a Gomorrah where stars plummet as well as rise on the back of idol worship. With a wicked wit, Anger recalls Valentino's taste for submissive sex, Chaplin's misdemeanours with underage girls and a handful of starlet suicides, each one offset by a wickedly ironic choice of photographs. The New York Times called it 'a delicious box of poisoned bonbons'.